Vietnam is urged to close drug detention centres after widespread abuse is discovered

Human rights activists have called on the Vietnam government to close drug detention centres in the country after finding that people detained for using drugs are held without due process for many years, denied treatment, tortured, and forced to work with little or no pay.

Detainees who refused to work as agricultural labourers or in garment and other factories were punished by being shocked with an electric baton or being held in punishment rooms for weeks or months, says a report from US based Human Rights Watch.

The report, which is based on interviews with 34 people who had been released in the previous year from 14 drug detention centres under the …